Marcus Aurelius · a new plain-English translation from the original language
How is it that the gods, having arranged everything so well and with such kindness toward mankind, overlooked this one thing alone: that some men, thoroughly good men who through their actions made, as it were, covenants with the divine, and who through pious deeds and rites became familiar friends of the divine, once they die, never come to be again, but are utterly extinguished? But if this is really so, be assured that if it ought to have been otherwise, they would have made it so. For if it were just, it would also have been possible, and had it accorded with the nature of things, nature itself would have made it happen. So from the fact that it is not so — if indeed it is not so — let it convince you that it need not have been so; for you can see for yourself that in raising this question you are arguing a case of justice against god. But we would not be arguing with the gods like this unless they were supremely good and supremely just; and if that is so, they would not have overlooked anything in the ordering of the world being unjustly and unreasonably neglected.